Assault them till they love you - in films real men don't need consent

Regarding women going after men in fiction, Gillian anderson's character did in the fall. Usually for a ons. When another male colleague was about it she called him out on it, pointed out that he probably had no problem with 'man fucks woman' but he did with 'woman fucks man', or words to that effect.

The physical attraction thing is interesting. Men seem to be much more comfortable in expecting that their love interest will be attractive enough for them, and in punching above their weight. Also if a beautiful man is with an average looking woman a lot of people including women will be uncomfortable with that and assume that the man will eventually cheat. Yet we are so used to seeing ugly men with beautiful young women, Trump comes to mind. Not making any particular point but I myself have dated and married men in my younger years that I wasn't physically attracted to, my friend bought me a fridge magnet in the end, 'life's too short to dance with ugly men' to remind me to do better in future. I have often wondered what all this is about. I think from my own point of view I was trained when young to be a nice kind girl, and put other peoples wants and needs above mine, and also had very low self esteem, what was important to me that the man liked me. Even now I have a couple of exes who are trying to win me back, one I'm not attracted to at all sexuslly, yet I have still been seriously considering it and possibly giving him ambiguous signals. This thread is making me think about my own behaviour in all this. I too have absorbed some seriously effed up ideas about sexuality and all of the above have had and still are having a huge effect on my life.

"Perhaps I ought to have said that physical attraction is a very important part of a relationship, especially to begin with. Is that better ?"
Not really, if what you mean by 'physical attraction' isn't just 'they're clean and they don't pong', but the vagaries of how they happen to look. It's the difference between 'I'm attracted to her eyes (because they're her eyes)', and 'I'm attracted to her because of her eyes'.

(unless, of course, she is a collector of prosthetic glass eyes, and you share a similar interest, so that is why you found her initially attractive!).

Apologies also Dervel, thanks for your clarification.

But regardless, if I did feel comfortable in their company and like them but there was zero sexual interest, I wouldn't be pursuing a relationship in the hope it materialised.

To clarify, and I don't know if this is unusual but I think it isn't, the range of women I find to be physically attractive is extremely wide, it is therefore of no concern to me that I would be able to easily find a partner to whom i was attracted (as in that qualification is easy enough to fulfill, not that "it is easy for me..."). What I'm saying is that you can almost take that as a given, so if they have what i consider a nice personality and I like spending time with them and feel comfortable and relaxed in their company, then I would highly doubt the physical aspect would be a barrier to a relationship. That probably sounds particularly shallow now I write it out.

I'm not saying your experience is invalid, that's yours to keep. I'm just trying to say behind door number 2 may be some ideas you could add to it. I'm just asking to open your mind just a little. I'm looking for a win/win interaction here not trying to attack you.

Over the last couple of years this has been a topic of debate in my household. I met my DH when we were 18 and 19 and from then until now at 36 he has never pressured me or 'tried anything on'. The reason I started thinking about this a couple of years ago was the startling realisation that I nearly ended our relationship in it's infancy because I didn't think he fancied me enough. It was only the fact that (without being too crude) he was very obviously receptive to intimacy that made me stay with him.

I am incredibly sorry if you find me condescending, it just seems very very basic to me. If you are trapped in a box it is one of your own making so I understand you lashing out at me. I'll try and work on reframing my rhetoric into something more palatable, but if I fail I apologise in advance.

bangs head against the wall no one is saying date or be in a relationship with someone you are not attracted to, but for heavens sake zoom out a little. Look at a whole person maybe you could develop physical attraction as a friendship develops. Why is it so cripplingly important that physical attraction is catered to first and foremost at all times?

Consider this example it's practically expected for men to trade in for younger models, but a woman even raises a loss of attraction for a husband and she is branded superficial. There is a clear double standard here.

I feel like on this forum I have to carefully craft every single post otherwise people home in on some perceived slight and then fail to engage with anything else that I wrote.

You mean like when you have to look immaculately made up and can never raise your voice because otherwise you will be called "hysterical" and no one will listen to you?

Sounds familiar.

Perhaps what you experience here is the loss of male privilege. A valuable learning experience.

Dervel

You are incredibly condescending. I amn't trapped in any narrow box. Why don't you see how patronising it is for you to state that "Women don't see it that way" when you're a man !? To imply that my own experiences are invalid that I have repeatedly got it wrong. In my experience women do indeed like men to whom they are physically attracted, who'd have thunk that eh ? Of course there has to be more than that to make a relationship last, but that has to be there too in my opinion.

I've not seen the recent Cold Feet but are the male/ female part of the same friendship circle? because actually the grand romantic gesture in that context puts an additional pressure on her. If I meet a girl and then in front of all HER friends made some grand romantic gesture then yeah that might be described as ballsy. If I do it to a girl in front of all OUR friends she may feel a massive pressure to give in. Context is everything.

somedyke

I feel like on this forum I have to carefully craft every single post otherwise people home in on some perceived slight and then fail to engage with anything else that I wrote. In my experience (and it is only mine) I have never had a partner who would be happy knowing that i was not attracted physically to her, but thought she was really interesting otherwise. Perhaps I ought to have said that physical attraction is a very important part of a relationship, especially to begin with. Is that better ?

growapear

That's a very male centric view of relationships if I may say. You are trapped in this narrow box of men going up to women in bars etc therefore it is 'founded' on physical attraction, as that is what men are conditioned to pursue. Now I am very happy to be contradicted by any woman here, but I'll go out on a limb and say that if you were to ask a great many women, looks/ physical attraction were not necessarily the first thing that drew them to their men. Therefore the view from the other side of the fence may not be 'based on physical attraction' at all.

Is physical attraction a component? Absolutely and it is also perfectly possible to develop physical attraction to someone after the fact. In addition there is a danger here Socrates identified over 2000 years ago. If you love something that is impermanent, your love will fade as it fades. I.E. Physical beauty (most of us lose it over time it's a fact of aging), If you love something more enduring like a mind or virtue the love you feel will last as long as you do.

Please just try and unpack your thinking a little bit more. No need to go full trans or anything, but at least look at this from a woman's perspective.

Of course not the sparrowhawk - I've been asked out a few times by women, I'm all for it. I was trying to explain why watching a particular scene (cold feet) that by him laying his bare his feelings, it puts her at the advantage only because he has played his hand first. The idea was put forward I think that she had no power and he was forcing it. I disagreed with that.

'Well - what I'm getting at is that she (as is typical) doesn't seem that bothered, he's the one that has to risk putting it all out there and possibly getting it thrown back in his face, because she won't, the woman never does. The impression is that he is more bothered than her, because despite clearly liking each other, without him making the effort, she will happily keep shagging the married guy. So I suppose that gives the impression of an imbalance as it's always the man who has to go overboard, if he didn't well - she wouldn't.'

Growapear - Do you genuinely believe that women never ever ask men out?

"Relationships are based on physical attraction, there's nothing wrong with that......"
There's a lot wrong with that if by physical attraction you mean a very shallow physical response to what someone looks like, rather than an entire response to who they actually are.

And what happens to a relationship based on physical attraction when the physical aspects of a person change? Why do we have all those articles on poor women expected to get their figure back after pregnancy? What about the effects of age?

I thought in the cold feet case he was otherwise moving away and it wasn't clear he would see her again ? Maybe I got that wrong i drifted in and out of it, it was obviously getting towards the end of the last episode in the series so the whole thing had to be resolved.

At some point someone has to give the other one some hint that they like them, you don't just blurt out an offer of a date or a drink with no reason (at least I wouldn't) to think that it will be well received. If someone has made it known they like someone, what did they expect the other person to do with that information ? You're speaking in vague terms about it, but to say that someone asking someone else out or telling them they like them is behaving rudely or forcing the issue is OTT. I'm sorry I just don't agree that the Cold Feet case is in anyway "appalling".

Dervel

Try telling a woman that you don't find her "visually appealing" and are only with her for her courage and see how you get on. Relationships are based on physical attraction, there's nothing wrong with that. The bravery is often to win over the audience as much as the object of affection. However everyone likes to be asked out by someone they like, so I still maintain that there is an element of bravery involved in it. How else are you proposing that it works ? I don't know you, or find you "visually appealing" but let's go on a date and see if we like each other ?

Yes, and we're not oversimplifying just adding additional perspective. If the dominant paradigm which involves these notions of men having to make the first move, whilst women demurely wait by the side to be noticed etc AND we have all these attendant problems. Well clearly doing the same old same old will get us nowhere.

I'd like to pick up your earlier point on bravery. You can demonstrate the virtue of courage in many ways. If you demonstrate a virtue like that consistently it has much the same effect.

Also courage is a universal virtue it is also attractive and positive in women. How do we recognise this (and other virtues) in potential partners if we only ask out women who are only visually appealing to us?

I think the point is, that that is the way we are supposed to see the characters, and that we excuse some apauling behaviour on the part of the male characters towards that end.

It's lazy, and contributes only bad ideas to society.

In the case of cold feet (and I haven't watched the episodes) - it wasn't an all or nothing proposition - he didn't have to go after her just at that party, there is plenty of other times to develop a relationship rather than force one. That's what we're saying - take the no, believe it, there is time later for that to naturally change without being forced.

X Post chocchoc -

Talking specifically about cold feet here - are you saying that (and apologies if you did not see it) that the viewers were not to think that those two characters are supposed to be together, and feel happy that it seems to be heading that way ? Did you not ? Do you think that there is anything at all to be said for James Nesbitts character making the first move, or is he to assume that "well, if she liked me she would ask me out".....clearly if everyone took this view it would be somewhat problematic. Which reminds me - a girl once asked why I didn't ask her out....answer i didn't think she liked me, but she did ! go figure....i think pretending all of this stuff is actually dead easy is over simplifying it - if that was true so many people wouldn't get it wrong. I remember when I was about 13 a girl asking me out and I didn't want to go out with her, but I did like her and didn't want to make her sad so I said "I'll think about it" (!) I then never got back to her and she started going out with someone else to try and make me jealous, in hindsight I should have just said no....

There's a difference between someone saying "no i don't want a relationship with you" (and then the other person then trying to change their mind, which is what is creepy and rude) and two people who both like each other waiting for the other to make the first move. The latter was what I perceived from Cold Feet.

So a happy relationship with someone she clearly really likes would never have taken place.

She clearly doesn't like him enough to do anything about it though, so not really that much.

This is exactly what we're talking about though - this weird perception that women should just sit at the side of the hall and wait to be asked to dance, and made to dance if they say they don't want to, because really, they do - how that's reinforced in video in situations rather more serious than dancing.

How in real life, that means that women might think they need to resist, and men might think that that resistance is just an act, and that's one way rape happens.

How in real life, if we could all just ignore this shite, and talk to each other, then all this confusion, a fair bit of rape, and some terrible relationships could be prevented.

I don't doubt you know many women who would never make the first move, but why precisely should I bother with women who want to make me jump through hoops? Life will throw up enough challenges as it is. I asset that falling into this trap speaks of a lack of confidence in the first place.

A very sensible attitude.

Whenever I hear men whine "But how can I know whether she's just playing hard to get!", I tell them that they can't know, but that it doesn't matter. Because the only decent thing to do is to believe her.

People should be honest. If they aren't, well, they can hardly complain that others believe their lies.
(Same for men who make rape jokes. Yeah, perhaps they wouldn't rape, but I'm going to assume they would, because they fucking said so.)

There's a reason why honesty is considered a virtue in most cultures I know of.

Women who say "no" when they mean "maybe" might exist, but they would go extinct in just one generation if men just respected their "no".
Men are the ones who can achieve change here.